Self Portrait

For our final drawing, we were assigned a self portrait. It was time to test myself on what I'd taken out of Life Drawing I. The following details a bit of my process.

First of all, I have a tendency to set high expectations for myself, and I do my best to follow through with these expectations. I knew this was going to be a strenuous and time-consuming piece, but I was determined to do all that I could to make it as successful as possible. Twelve hours of drawing and two sunrises later, I am very happy with the final product.

I've never studied artistic anatomy before this semester, so I still have quite a bit of room to grow as far as perfecting my skills. I started my self portrait by developing the planes and proportions of the skull. I then moved on to the features of the face: the nose, eyes, ear, and mouth. I finished up with the neck and shoulders.

After going through a draw-erase-draw-erase cycle quite a few times, I was happy with the proportions, but I was left with a number of smudges and line shadows. This made the drawing look very messy right away, and I felt that it would look sloppy and leave the structural planes too visible in the final piece. I decided to start over, but I would use what I already had done to help me.

I darkened the lines of my first piece, traced it onto a sheet of newsprint so I didn't dirty the back of my final paper, and then placed a new sheet of drawing paper over the newsprint. (On a side note, I've heard that famous painters who aren't satisfied with a piece sometimes paint over their entire canvas and start over, so I'll consider this my modified version of that step...) The resulting drawing can be seen below.

This last step made it easier to add the features to my face. The biggest issue I came across during this phase was proportion and placement. I probably drew the equivalent of four portraits with the amount of erasing, resizing, and moving I did. At the end of it all, I was glad that I started on a clean sheet of paper, or my drawing would have been far messier.

As much time and effort as it took to complete my self portrait, I enjoyed the assignment and am incredibly pleased with the results. In my mind, it is without a doubt the best piece I've completed in Life Drawing I, and it demonstrates what I have learned throughout the class. I look forward to further developing my skills in artistic anatomy in Life Drawing II, and hope to complete more work that I am this proud of.

This is my first draft of the drawing. I was left with a number of smudges and line shadows after establishing the main planes and features of the form. I decided to start over, but I darkened the lines of this draft and used it as a reference for my final.

The completed version of my final drawing.